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By Laton McCartney
Whenever environmentally responsible companies such as Hallmark Cards or Allstate decide to retire IT equipment, they call in Cascade Asset Management. "For Hallmark and Allstate, environmental sustainability is a huge priority," says Cascade CEO Neil Peters-Michaud.
This means Cascade, which serves Fortune 500 companies, will ensure that, say, if a client is unloading a couple of hundred servers or laptops, the gear won't end up being burned or dumped at some toxic site in China such as the one depicted in a recent 60 Minutes expose on e-waste. "We handle customer equipment in the most environmentally responsible way, and provide high levels of security to ensure the equipment is safely transported from the customer site to the final state of destruction," says Peters-Michaud.
Of course, IT concerns aren't the only factor in unloading large volumes of computers and the like. There are also vital financial and data security issues. Used machines that are refurbished often have a value that can be recaptured by the company. There's also the matter of ensuring zero data compromise and the complete purging of all data on the hard drives. Consequently, while the CIO, IT asset or procurement manager or desktop manager are usually directly involved in overseeing the recycling or disposal process, the CFO and compliance officer are very much part of the process as well.
"The CIO is clearly involved but more and more the CFO and even CEO are also driving this process, especially as the press reports violations such as those shown on 60 Minutes," says Kevin Cleary, general manager of IBM Global Asset Recovery Services (GARS). Such wide exposure has made the entire C-level suite far more aware of e-waste, Cleary notes.
Increasingly, too, with regulatory pressures on e-waste disposal mounting – to date 18 states, plus New York City, have passed laws creating state/city-wide e-waste recycling programs -- environmental concerns are factoring heavily into the asset recovery process. That means being wary of asset recovery firms, "that can make things go away fast," says Robert Houghton, CEO Redemtech, a provider of full cycle IT asset recovery and management and technology change management solutions.
On November 10, 2008 – the day after the 60 Minutes e-waste exposé – Redemtech, Cascade, 30 other technology asset recovery and management companies, BAN (the Basil Action Network) and the Electronics Takeback Coalition announced the formation of what's called e-Stewards program, which identifies the most responsible recyclers in North America.
The e-Steward Certification is the continent's first independently audited and accredited electronic waste recycler certification program. It forbids the dumping of toxic e-waste in developing countries, local landfills and incinerators; the use of prison labor to process e-waste; and the unauthorized release of private data contained in discarded computers.
"Currently, the truly responsible recyclers in the US and Canada face unfair competition from the thousands of unethical, so-called ‘e-waste recyclers' in North America that would more accurately be called ‘waste exporters,'" Houghton said at the time of the announcement. "We strongly support a certified, audited program to separate the legitimate recyclers from the low-road operators."
The e-Steward program provides companies with the assurances that their technology gear will be "securely monitored and documented with increased rigor," says Houghton.
Next, Twenty-five Years and Counting at IBM
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